Tag Archives: Devotional

Enjoy colouring again while taking a fresh look at your relationship with God

04 Tuesday Oct 2016

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restore-my-soul-coverThe thought of taking markers, pencil crayons or crayons and colouring a picture manifested flashbacks of elementary school report cards: “Robert must learn to colour within the lines.”

I quickly learned, however, that Restore My Soul: a coloring book Devotional Journey is more about colouring as a spiritual exercise than it is about staying within the lines.

Restore My Soul combines two passions of its creator, Montreal author – and now illustrator – Ann-Margret Hovsepian. In 2006, Hovsepian was part of the team, as editor and conceptual designer, that created Blossom: The Complete New Testament for Girls Biblezine. The success of that project led to three devotionals for teenage girls: The One Year Designer Genes Devo, Truth & Dare: One Year of Dynamic Devotions for Girls and Truth, Dare, Double Dare: Another Year of Dynamic Devotions for Girls.

In the meantime, Hovsepian continued to doodle, something she began as a child and writes about in the introduction to Restore My Soul: “When I didn’t have my nose shoved into a book, I drew and doodled and lettered and colored,” She stopped drawing, unless it was for a school assignment or when she was bored. “I still didn’t take art seriously until I started sharing my occasional doodles with friends, who responded with enthusiasm.”

I created Restore My Soul not only to encourage you to fearlessly enjoy coloring again but also to invite you to take a fresh look at your relationship with God… (Ann-Margret Hovsepian)

Those friends, she writes in her blog, “encouraged (me) to get serious about doodling – one of my many hobbies.” But she didn’t want to create just another colouring book. The idea of pairing a devotional with an illustration, and making the act of colouring a spiritual exercise, caught the attention of Tyndale House Publishers.

“I created Restore My Soul not only to encourage you to fearlessly enjoy coloring again but also to invite you to take a fresh look at your relationship with God – or consider the possibility of a relationship if you don’t already know Him personally,” she writes. “My desire is for your soul to be restored as you draw near to Him through the Bible verses, the meditations, the prayer prompts, and, of course, the quiet times you will spend working on the coloring pages.”restore-my-soul-compass

Hovsepian’s drawings range from pictoral depictions, such as the compass on the right (which was the first drawing I coloured). to abstracts. There’s something for everyone, both in the devotional messages and prompts and in the illustrations.

What’s attractive about Restore My Soul is that you don’t have to start at the beginning and work your way to the end. Each devotional and illustration pairing stands on their own, allowing the reader to choose a topic or picture depending on their own spiritual needs.

One piece of advice Hovsepian does offer is: “read the devotional before colouring.” The scripture verse(s), devotional and prompts will provide you with enough spiritual fodder to chew on while colouring. And what’s interesting is, if you’re anything like me, it may take more than one colouring session to complete the drawing. And you may find yourself meditating on an element of the devotional completely different than you did the first time.

As for colouring outside the lines? I don’t worry about it as much any more.

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For more about Ann-Margret Hovsepian check http://www.annhovsepian.com/

Listen to an Arts Connection interview with Ann-Margret Hovsepian on Monday, October 10 at 9 p.m. ET on 94.3 Faith FM or the simultaneous webcast at http://www.faithfm.org

Finding some advice along life’s highway

23 Tuesday Feb 2016

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A Traveler's Advisory - coverIn the early 1990s, Canadian singer/songwriter Tom Cochrane said “Life is a Highway.” In Marcia Laycock’s latest book A Traveler’s Advisory: Stories of God’s Grace Along the Way she notes that even when the highway becomes a little bumpy, God is there to either smooth the way or get us through the rough patches.

The pocket-sized A Traveler’s Advisory (124-page, 8″ x 5″ book) packs more depth than it’s size would suggest. Laycock, an award-winning author, uses her experiences as a pastor’s wife, missionary and traveler as she looks at the highway of life in sections titled “In the Air,” “On the Road,” “On Vacation” and “Far Away Places.”

One of the strengths of the book is Laycock’s folksy writing style. Having met her at a number of writers’ conferences and interviewed her for Arts Connection, reading through A Traveler’s Advisory was like listening to her tell the stories in person.

Laycock weaves the memory and spiritual lesson into a seamless fabric

Take, for instance, this excerpt from her story “A Mini Parked Between Semis”:

I gripped the wheel of my Austin Mini and concentrated on the flow of traffic around me. I had never driven through this area before but I knew the route I had to follow would take me through the heart of a large city. There was no bypass to avoid the downtown traffic. I stayed in the middle lane to avoid vehicles turning left and right. As the city began to close around me, so did the traffic. I was already feeling a bit claustrophobic when a huge semi pulled up to my right. We both stopped at a red light.

Then another semi pulled up on my left. The two trucks effectively blocked out the sun. I glanced in my rear-view mirror just as a third semi pulled in behind me, stopping inches from my tiny bumper….”

The book’s other strength is the ease with which Laycock blends spiritual lessons into the narrative. I’ve read similar books where the lessons seem to be tacked on at the last moment as if to say: here’s the lesson, in case you didn’t get it.

Laycock weaves the memory and spiritual lesson into a seamless fabric. Again I turn to “A Mini Parked Between Semis”:

“I remembered looking into the rear-view mirror of my Austin Mini and seeing nothing but bumper. I remembered how those semis had blocked out the sun. And I remembered focusing on that stop-light, knowing that it would eventually turn green and let me get out of there. Sometimes life puts us in a box of pain and confusion. The only way to survive is to hang on to the One you know will get you out.”

A Traveler’s Advisory is a quick read, but a deep read. And a book that you’ll return to again and again because you’ll discover a new truth each time you read it.

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For more about Marcia Laycock and A Traveler’s Advisory: Stories of God’s Grace Along the Way go to http://marcialeelaycock.com/